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Last year's winner Viewed has emerged as the favourite to deliver master trainer Bart Cummings a 13th Melbourne Cup trophy on Tuesday, despite being lumbered with a massive weight and the burden of history being firmly against repeat winners.

The six-year old, who defied odds of nearly 50-1 to win the 3,200 metre handicap by a nose over British entrant Bauer last year, was rated a 5-1 chance by most betting agencies on the eve of the £3 million race, a fraction ahead of second favourite Alcopop.

Only five horses have won the Melbourne Cup - Australia's richest and most poular race which was first held in 1861 - on more than one occasion but Viewed has firmed as the clear favourite this year after winning last month's £1.4m Caulfield Cup, the major traditional leadup race.

He earned a one kilogram penalty for that win, meaning he will have to carry 58kg on a Flemington track expected to be sodden if the forecasts of overnight ran are correct.

While punters are expected to plunge more than £33m on Viewed and 81-year-old Cummings's two other entrants, Roman Emperor and Allez Wonder, South Australian horse Alcopop is looming as the runner most likely to burst the master trainer's bubble.

The five-year-old gelding's unlikely run to the Melbourne Cup has all the makings of a modern-day fairytale.

Trained by little-known Jake Stephens, Alcopop was once used to muster cattle and referee polo matches, but has won his last four starts and counts Cup-winning jockey Kerrin McEvoy as a fan.

"I think he is the one to beat in the Melbourne Cup," McEvoy told said last week.

"He has been very impressive, as impressive as anything running in the race," said McEvoy, who will ride international rough chance Crime Scene on Tuesday in a bid for a second Melbourne Cup after guiding Brew to victory in 2000.

Shocking, trained by former jumps jockey Mark Kavanagh, has also been rated one of the "battlers" and has shortened to fourth favourite behind Cummings's Roman Emperor, following his win at the Lexus Stakes (2500m) at Flemington on Saturday.

While dominating headlines in the lead-up to previous Melbourne Cups, the six international raiders have been largely written off by punters, after Godolphin's fancied Kirklees was withdrawn and the Luca Cumani-trained Cima de Triomphe flopped in earlier races and failed to qualify.

The most favoured are four-year-old European import Changingoftheguard, a former Aidan O'Brien horse now trained by David Hayes, and Herman Brown-trained import Mourilyan.

Reuters